Jump to content

April 20-24, 2009


Toups

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 195
  • Created
  • Last Reply
  • Members

I 100% agree with you. ATWT is by far the worst show on the air. Horrible writing, no stories that make any sense, revolving door of beloved characters, and no plot line that lasts more than two episodes in length (if there is a murder on Monday, you'll know who did it by Tuesday, and then there is a good chance it will never be mentioned again). I have been watching since 1987 and I only record to DVR and skim now. I envy the writing at ABC :-)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I guess not having numbers to ponder does this :).

I confess, I am personally stunned at the DEPTH of the anger at ABC, and at Bibel's column. I'm still trying to process what it all means.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I think it is just conventional wisdom defending itself. I am not sure giving Guza six months with no intervention is a great idea because he has no taste, but I do agree writers should be allowed to write. I don't even like the concept of focus groups and think ABC should abandon those. But really, you don't want Guza or Pratt and their unbridled genius anywhere on your TV. :lol: :lol: :lol:

They have to be the alltime worst soap writers. Maybe ABC can hire new writers and then give them free reign. Guza should retire though. And this is unpopular so I probably should put this in the other thread, but any soap writer who can't sell Andrea Evans as Tina but writes endlessly for Marty "This actress is so depressing I may commit suicide" Saybrook should think about hanging it up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Where are the daily ratings????

That should tell you something right there, when they start the character destruction of Robin, for whatever stupid reason(my guess is Guza wants to do Patrick/Liz for some reason), the ratings started to fall. When Scrubs are together, the ratings seem good.

Sorry, but there are things on GH that do bring in ratings. I don't know if Liason does or not, but Scrubs sure does. I don't think it's a coincidence that the ratings have dropped as much as they have since the desctruction of Scrubs started....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

It is THE SHOW, not small elements of it. And even then, nothing happens with out promotion$. And even then, nothing fights the demographic trend that slowly kills them all.

GH, though, is in a special place, because it is currently declining faster than the genre. THAT is danger.

AMC & OLTL...they've actually been gaining/holding stable. From a ratings perspective, like DOOL, they should probably be left to keep doing what they're doing. You know that's how the suits view it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Mark is right. It is promotion that brings in the viewers when soaps have "events." Look at how they widely the promote Guza's sweep stunts. They do not stick to SoapNet or ABC Daytime. The promos are every where on the net, in the mags, and on cable networks. In turn, there is a bump in the ratings which never lasts. Robin and Patrick's wedding barely got a snippet in a SoapNet run promo of multiple stories. Did GH ever run promos about Robert and Anna's return? I do not remember. I do remember seeing ABC promos for Robin and Anna's reunion which is why I knew to tune in to AMC.

In any case, GH's problem is not the 20% of the show with Robin and Patrick, Nikolas and WasEmily, the hospital, and the Qs. The main problem is the 80% of the show devoted to the mob and its ancillary characters.

I do have a lot of anger about how Guza and Phelps have written GH into this mess. The show has good bones, but it rarely lives up to its promise. I have became even more bitter after Night Shift 2 when I saw how a talented writer could tell solid stories with good performances.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

OLTL had been holding steady, but they seem to be bleeding now.

There's nothing to promote on GH now, because they save everything for the latest EVENT THAT CHANGES NOTHING. What did the toxic balls story change? They killed bit characters. Now they could have done promos saying, "Carly and Lulu are finally likeable again! Tracy and Edward share good scenes!" and that would have brought in more fans than what they did choose to showcase.

All the stories are just a mess. I still have no idea why they brought Natalia Livingston back and I don't think they do either.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Yet over the last couple months, there are been tons of promos for Sonny and Claudia's horrible story and now Carly and her pregnancy on SoapNet, ABC Daytime and in the soap mags. Sense the theme? There might have been one promo for Helena's return which was great and should have lasted longer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I was surprised at their ratings for the wedding w/Robert's return

can't remember if it was the first or second

but it was 2.0 or something...

I never thought that there would be a Patrick and Elizabeth pairing

anytime Patrick has a POV with a female character eg Olivia he did the same thing...

I saw Elizabeth's involvement in the PPD storyline serving as a POV/friend and also as a contrast to

highlight Robin in the throes of her depression, hitting rock bottom

Elizabeth pretty much explained it in dialog during the intervention...

just a friend to both . All he talked about is his love for Robin

....I like friendships on soaps

Re Helena

Is she gone already? :lol:

Seems like one of their stunt castings

Wonder what they are going to do with Martha Byrne..??

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I always find it funny or even almost hillarious that in this day and age that the powers that be have so jaded daytime soap opera fans into believing that it is all about the couples. And as mentioned the soap opera press like Nelson, Daytime Confidential and so many others perpetuate that mentality too.

It is so funny how it always comes down to if Scrubs were together or Liason were togethen then the ratings will go up or you take Zendell apart and ratings will go down.

It all goes to the Luke and Laura and supercouple mentality that the 80's started and the 90's inbread in soap viewers. And soap writers like Sherri Anderson forced and instilled on viewers even going to the press and saying that at the end of the day she needed to know that no matter what at the end of the day she knew that Marlena loved John and it would always be that way.

Folks it is not couples that ever created the sucessful ratings of daytime. Yes the couples were important - they are a key element. But it wasn't the couples - it was the underlying things with the couples and much of that is what is missing today and is much of the reason why the ratings are dropping and continue to drop.

1) For one soaps have lost their identity. They are not true to themselves. Look at Y&R and Days for example of this. Both shows in the last few years lost their ways and began to bottom out. They drifted from what even modern day fans felt they were all about. Sure Hogan Sheffer and Edward Scott brought great technical aspects to Days but they also made Days into something that most fans didn't recognize. What did fans do they ran away from the show in droves. Higley comes on and Tomlin comes on. Days starts resembling it olds self again. Sure it is not as technically great as it was, but it feels like Days again - not the Days I watched in the 70's but it does feel like the Days that is known to most of the modern day fans. What happens it's ratings go up even without big super couples like John/Marlena and Patch/Kayla. And even without couples like Lumi and EJami even being happily together. Their ratings are going up.

Many of the soaps are trying to be just like someone else or something that they aren't. Fans are drifting from them. Even with the best and most popular couples there, if the show doesn't seem like itself fans are not going to watch. Just look at Days and the EJami/Lumi fans who claimed they were the biggest fan bases in daytime. They were front and center on Days during Sheffer's run, but it did nothing for the ratings.

2) The biggest element that is missing from soaps is angst and suffering. Soaps operas have thrived on angst and suffering for years. And not just onscreen but it has thrived on the angst and suffering of it's viewers as well.

Onscreen the heroine and the couple suffer and wait and wait and wait, but at the same time so do the viewers. Today as stated by others, things happen too fast. One day you have a murder and the next it is solved. The soap ends on a cliff hanger and in the next promo or the coming attractions the end of the cliffhanger is given away.

The reason people tuned in by the millions to see the weddings of Luke & Laura on GH and Steve & Betsy on ATWT and Steve & Kayla on Days was because we suffered with them. We waited and we waited. It was a buildup and it became a big event. It wasn't just the couple either.

It was the stories that surronded them, knowing the obstacles they went through to be together, the happy times, the sad times, the romance, the pursuit, - we went through it with them.

We waited on Luke and Laura to be married for 2 years after the rape. It was almost a year before they actually slept together when it was by Laura's choice. Even when they were on the run together, they didn't sleep together. Their first love making was an event.

These romances played out not as the romance but as part of the overall story and canvas of the show. None of these couples were the be all and end all of the show. They had ramifications on other people. For instance every part of Laura's story from day one affected her mother's story, from the point that Laura got involved with older man David Hamilton, to her killing him, to Lesley taking the blame for her, to Rick getting angry at Lesley for doing so, then Rick sleeping with Monica, and so on and on.

They were chain events - no man or couple was an island.

It is in now way about the couples alone. It is not the couples that have really ever caused teh ratings to go up and down. Sure they are a part of it. But without soap opera being about what it is supposed to be about none of it succeeds.

Soap operas have got to get back to a sense of mystery, angst, suffering, a sense of community, and a sense of identity within each show. Without these things soap opera is not soap opera. And it will not survive. It has not chance.

I mentioned in the first part about the shows losing their identity. IN a broader sense daytime soap opera has lost it's identity. Primetime soaps are much closer to what daytime soap opera used to be than daytime is today. And for that reason I enjoy the primetime soaps today a whole lot more than I do the daytime ones.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Exactly! That 80% is what's running this show into the ground. Anymore, whenever I turn on GH and I just see either Sonny or Maxie or Claudia or Spanelli, I just turn the TV off. It's that group with the rest of the character's they are involved with too such as Jax, Carly, Jason, et al, that leave viewers disgruntled and turned off by the show.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.



  • Recent Posts

    • Sorry, there must have been a error, while creating the file. I redone it and it has audio
    • Tamara Tunie was on a local CBS affiliate in Baltimore the other day talking about a few things she had going on, BTG amongst them: "Beyond the Gates" star Tamara Tunie is in Baltimore for the Reginald F. Lewis Museum's 20th anniversary
    • Kobe/Long had their own template and pretty much gutted the cast. As soon as contracts were up established characters were dropped. They needed to free the budget for the new characters. Going back to Ann,I wonder why the Dobsons renewed her contract around 78? After her initial story she became supporting and they didn't seem to want to pursue a romance with Mike. Maybe the feedback was that viewers blamed her indirectly for Leslie's death. If Mike hadn't taken on her case etc. Did she decide not to disrupt her son's life? Seems odd after everything she didn't claim him back. 1976 continues... Joe Werner is just not bouncing back after his recovery as he should, and Sarah, concerned about his sometimes morbid-seeming depression, consults Justin Marler. They agree that Joe is becoming a “cardiac cripple,” and know this kind of overcompensation for illness and overprecaution can not only be a permanently depressed condition but can actually cause a setback for him physically.  Marler releases Joe into Sarah’s care, but it’s soon apparent that just being out of the hospital hasn’t done anything to boost Joe’s spirits about his return to a normal existence. Marler finally lays it out to Joe—the choice has to be his. He can choose to lead a normal, productive life as a doctor and as a husband to the best wife he could have, or he can choose to become an invalid and live on the outside looking in for the rest of his days, sentencing Sarah to the same fate. Realizing the selfishness of what he’s doing to —Sarah as well as the narrowness of the confinement he’s set for himself, Joe begins to see his preoccupation with his illness as the self-pity it really is and decides he’s ready to return to the hospital for a one hour shift each day. Sarah is overjoyed by his turnabout, but full happiness is hers on the day she overhears Joe telling a fearful patient that the world is beautiful and worth any. effort to get back into it. Steve and Adam are thrilled to learn that Cedars has been the recipient of the Levy Grant for expansion of hospital property. But they have learned, as they report to Ed, that the land they were hoping to build the new research facility on, the land immediately adjacent to the hospital, has been purchased by Dr. Justin Marler. Both Adam and Steve feel that Justin is expanding a power base at Cedars and the land purchase is just one more block in Justin’s power play. When Ed asks Marler why he purchased this particular parcel of land, Marler explains that he bought it with the express intention of someday building his own offices and facilities convenient to the major facilities of Cedars. When the subject of the hospital’s needing the land arises, Marler meets with Adam, and they agree that he should realize a fair profit from his property and that an unbiased assessor should be engaged to evaluate the market value of the land so they can agree on a selling price. When Sarah comments on the fact that Marler is to realize a profit on the land, he bitterly replies that no matter what he’s done since coming to Cedars to prove that he has changed. since she last knew him, she refuses to see him as anything but what he was all those years ago. Sarah insists this isn’t true. But Marler then calls Adam for a meeting and informs him that the land is not for sale at any price. As Adam begins to grow alarmed, Marler continues that the site for the new building will be his personal donation to the hospital. As Adam expresses profuse thanks and appreciation, Marler wryly notes that the tax deductions he’ll realize on this contribution to a charitable institution will benefit himself almost as much as Cedars. When Steve Jackson learns that Marler is to be elected head of the research wing that will be built on his property, he expresses the conviction that this was the exact intention of the gift. Adam, however, assures Steve that the donation wasn’t a factor in the hospital  board’s decision, they were concerned only with Dr. Marler’s reputation as a doctor. | After lengthy consultations and meetings. with the hospital  staff, Ed assured by the head nurse that her nurses performed commendably despite the added pressure of the train wreck, presents his findings to the hospital review board. Steve arrives at two possible explanations for the facts. Either Grainger, more active than usual due to the previously delayed medication, reached for the writing pad and inadvertently disconnected the breathing tubes, or he was in a state of extreme upset because of the delayed medication and.in the excitement a surge of adrenalin within his system caused his brain aneurism to start hemorrhaging. " Upon learning that the review board has ruled out negligence in Grainger’s death, Ed tells Rita, who takes her first free breath in a long time. But Ed hasn’t thought to tell Rita that he’s been in touch with Grainger’s attorney, Mr. Schafer, who, knowing that a woman was at the base of Grainger’s investigation, is coming to Springfield to try to find out who the woman - was who walked out on Grainger when he collapsed —in the restaurant. Peggy, learning that Rita’s “forgetting” to deliver Holly’s message was instrumental in their divorce ‘being finalized, tells Ed that Holly wanted to reach him to stop the divorce. Immediately after, Peggy is torn by doubts, wondering if she did the right thing.She confides in Barbara, who then discusses the situation with Ed. He tells her he and Holly have discovered a new closeness now that they are building their separate lives. Barbara quickly contradicts him: Holly is not building a new life. Barbara gently cautions Ed, saying, “People change, feelings change, and what seems right now may not be right a year from now. No decision is irrevocable.” Ed agrees with this. Now that Ben has declared his love for her, Hope finds herself apprehensive, fearing that she might be making a mistake, as she did a few years ago, when she was sure she was in love with her college professor. Explaining that she doesn’t want to make another mistake, she asks Ben to be patient, and he agrees. When Mike expresses his disapproval of Ben’s overstated independence, his need to be beholden to no one, Hope quickly jumps to Ben’s defense, and Mike apologizes. But Ben, surprisingly, accepts Mike’s assessment as constructive criticism. Later Hope, examining her feelings and desires, tells Ben she does love him and wants to belong to him. Later that evening, after they’ve made love, Ben asks Hope to marry him.And, delighted, she replies that she will. At Hope’s instigation, Bert has a family dinner to which Ben is invited, and Hope announces their intention to marry over glasses of wine. Mike politely offers best wishes while Bert thrills the couple with her offer to' make a Christmas wedding for them. Bert later tells Mike he must accept this engagement with good spirits for Hope, and later, seeing the joy she’s feeling, he gives his daughter his approval. But Ben finds another problem on his very own doorstep: his brother Jerry, who announces he’s left home after several bad fights with their parents. He refuses to tell Ben what they were fighting about. As Ben is showering, Jerry borrows his car and goes out for an hour. The phone rings, but Ben can’t hear it. Shortly after, two uniformed officers visit Mike at home to tell him that his late wife’s car has been involved in a delicatessen robbery earlier in the evening. Since Ben bought Leslie’s car, Mike accompanies the officers to Ben’s apartment. Ben curtly informs the police that he had nothing to do with the robbery and makes it clear that he feels they wouldn’t be there if he didn’t have a record and that his exoneration doesn’t prevent his being hassled like any ex-con,as they tell him he has to go to the police station for questioning. Hope tells Ben she called him earlier, and when he replies that he must have been in the shower, she accepts his word unhesitatingly.Jerry finally returns to Ben’s place and under questioning from Ben admits that he robbed the store,explaining that he has debts. Ben is now in a quandary,as he feels he must protect his brother but doesn’t want to be unfair to Hope. He tries to ease the situation by withdrawing $185 from the joint checking account he opened with Hope and repaying the delicatessen owner. He then sends Jerry out of town to stay with a friend. His relief at having solved the problem is short-lived, however, when Mike informs him that, despite the reparations, the robbery was a felony and the police will continue to investigate. Hope is badly upset to learn while making a deposit that Ben withdrew’a sum which Mike tells her is equal to the amount stolen. This shakes her belief that he _was really home when she called, and she goes to him, asking for an answer to put her mind at rest. Ben can’t betray Jerry and asks Hope to trust him, promising she will have the whole story eventually. But Hope can’t accept this; she needs complete honesty and openness in her relationship and without it cannot goon. She painfully tells her father that the wedding is off despite her love for Ben, and tells Bert to stop preparations. Mike goes to Ben, reminding him that half the money in the account is Hope’s and she has the right to an answer. But Ben won’t say any more and refuses Mike’s offer to represent him legally, again stating that he doesn’t need a lawyer, because he’s done nothing wrong.     
    • And not since. I recall it was quite small for a house that size. And I don't know why you would walk down a narrow corridor to get to the main living area. I hate when the sets on soaps don't have a logical layout! As for Andre his clothing is fashion forward and suitable for his character.He ain't gonna wear no blazer!
    • The last I remember seeing Ben, he was divorcing Amanda. He came to tell Evie that he still loved her, but was leaving town so that Amanda wouldn't blame Evie for his divorcing her. I'm not exactly sure when, but Evie doesn't leave town until sometime after Nola and Quint's engagement ball. I'm not sure if she leaves before or after Justin leaves in Sept(?) of '83. I grew to like Helena when she became friends with Vanessa, once she's edging her way out of Quint's life.
    • Please register in order to view this content

    • Please register in order to view this content

       
    • It sure was!  With respect, how does that make sense?  These men are young, I don't see that. 
    • I hope this played better than it sounds, because I'm imagining two separate scenes (the attack by Arnie, and later Charles getting shot). In my mind, it should have been a fluid single sequence. I wonder if or how often "bastard" was uttered in this scene. Fare thee well, Christopher Reeve. I've said it before, but pop culture's gain was daytime's definite loss. Imagine seeing HIM day after day, year after year, decade after decade, conceivably until they stopped producing soaps in NYC.   Well, that answers my "bastard" question. Good lord, the roads of Rosehill are packed with high-strung drivers and/or pedestrians. More sequences that I hope played better than they sound.

      Please register in order to view this content

    • I think Ben had already left while under Marland and only returned briefly to reconcile with Eve. The whole thing confuses me as I thought for a long time that Eve left the show to go be with him and that was when they reconciled, but it seems like he returned, they got back together, then he left and maybe they were still together until she left to join him? I have no idea.  It does seem like the interim writers were using some characters like Justin and Helena who were quickly dumped under Kobe/Long, which is a shame. Helena is one of those characters who likely always had a shelf life but Rose Alaio was such a vibrant screen presence, if Kobe/Long had just been patient, she likely would have fit in well in the Reva era.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy